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Hey Emily can you and your writer-reader friends help us with this? It's a long story so sorry for that.

Me and a couple close friends found an author in a new fandom, we've been more or less chatting with her anonymously for a few months now and she's pretty nice we share a lot of brainrots as writer-readers ourselves. This author is kind of a niche writer so it's understandable that she really wants her fans to leave comments and be openly supportive, within this time she even had a depressive episode due to lack of engagement and fandom wankery. All understandable really. She came back a while ago and is back in great mood, and she dropped new fics too.

The problem is, the newest fic was sad and dark, the characters were bitter and the ending was ambiguous, tags and summary conveyed that, it was all intentional and her own friends have been hyping it up as sad bitter dark fic (not problematic dark, just dramatically angsty and bleak that fits canon tonally)

One of us has been going thru a very rough time themself, spiraled badly it seems, and I didn't learn about it until today. They read the fic, not their type of fic at all but I think they just wanted to feel something even if it was negative, judging by the comment. They're a big commenter and they left a long comment detailing all the stuff they liked, quotes, and that they really liked how the ending was not necessarily happy. This started the problem. Now the writer is constantly talking about how she hates sad endings, shading sad/ bittersweet endings, got her friends to post a lot of Happy content about those characters all of a sudden, talking to her other anons like she's venting about my friend's comment and my friend who had been avoiding social media happened to check in once, only to find all of that on their dash. They're now really upset at themself.

It's a messy situation and Idk how to help. I got to talk to my friend after days and this is what I see. They're regretting everything from commenting to ever "bothering" that author by chatting with her like It Is A Mess okay, and of course I'm worried about my friend but Idk how to handle the situation so the author doesn't get any flame or thinks we're attacking her? Our other friend is not as invested so he's okay with dropping the author altogether. Please advise us fanfic veterans we need it badly.

As long as your friend didn’t write anything rude/mean in their comment, I don’t see how they’ve done anything wrong in this situation. It sounds like the author is overreacting to a harmless comment.

At this point, it might be best to no longer engage with the author about this particular fic/topic if it’s going to cause distress to any of the parties involved. It might be better for you and your friend to put some space between y’all and the author for now. Maybe unfollow her until she’s done ranting about this topic. Eliminate the stressor from your lives, y’know? It doesn’t mean you can’t still read and enjoy her fics in the meantime.

I’ve personally reached out to people through chat when a problem has arisen (I wouldn’t try this approach anonymously via an Ask). I like this approach because you can be more direct without outsiders (followers) being in your business. However, I know this approach can be intimidating, especially when you’re trying to talk to a larger blog. Your friend also might not want to risk getting further backlash from the author which is understandable.

If your friend does decide to take the direct conversation approach then remind them not to come off aggressive or super defensive. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Just a simple, “Hey, sorry for bothering you. I’ve seen you making some posts about so-and-so and I wanted to apologize if it was because of the comment I made on so-and-so fic. Just wanted to let you know I didn’t mean anything bad by it/didn’t mean to imply anything negatively about you/your fics.”

There's really not much else you can do about the situation. Just reassure your friend that they didn't do anything wrong/don't deserve the backlash and then try and wait for the author to move past the topic. It's up to y'all on whether y'all want to still engage with this author in the future.

Best of luck to you 🖤.

yo, so i’m home, and actually going to try get around to drafts today (as well as pack to leave my dorm tomorrow; I don’t have much left tbh).

Sorry for kind of being inactive lately?? Like it hasn’t been me being picky with blogs, but some serious life issues have cropped up. Vent under the cut; it’s pretty sensitive stuff so I’ll put triggers in the tags. Probs gonna nuke this later.

I haven’t really been going because the classes/assignments make me downright miserable, and just continuously feeling bad about not attending/completing assignments because a n x i e t y. I’ve... been stuck in the house for ages and blocking everyone out, which isn’t good?? And... just generally felt like a failure which hasn’t helped things. Counsellors never got back to me and I felt even worse when they were like: “it’s too late to catch up.” It just spiralled. It’s why I’ve been acting so late.

I’ve been really uncertain where my education is going and terrified about funding and where I’m going to live and if I have any future at all. It got pretty... dark, to sugarcoat it, and I’m still not okay even though my family is helping me out with it. If I have any education at all next year, I’m living with them, which... my family really stresses me out? Like, I’m living with an okay relative but our personalities clash/we have different beliefs and I’m really anxious about it. I love them but some aspects of their character... hnngh (this is one of the reasons I loved living alone; no one to quarrel with, but my sis thinks me being alone is what made everything worse, so)

I’ve also never had a job before either (at least one where I get paid) so I’m going to have to do that for the first time in my life to pay for board and I’m terrified. I don’t even know if I might get education next year because I fucked this one up so badly. My first year? Fine. Stellar. I got great marks. This one? Hahahahahaha

I’m a disappointment.

Anyway like, I’m dealing with a lot of new developments lately so if it comes to it, please be patient with me? Not that any of you aren’t aaaa

I just wanna’ write a bit tonight and try get my mind of it; my sis told me to try not to worry so I could use the distraction.